Allowing people into the wilderness with a car that by design has these issues is very close to negligent homicide.
What exactly do you propose? A zipcar that doesn't allow allow you to drive outside of the city?
When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
151–160 of 192 posts
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#152I've rented Zipcars here in the UK many times and never encountered this. The cars have a key in the glove compartment. After you initially unlock it at the beginning of your reservation you take that key with you. You put it back in at the end of the reservation. In between you use it to unlock like a regular car key/fob. Am I missing something here? Edit: https://support.zipcar.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/360001460928-…
Given human nature, I'd assume you would be missing the key frequently.
Many of the reported issues seem to involve renewing an expired reservation. Also, how's your cell coverage there?
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
“I ordered the tuna salad every time I ate at the restaurant. About half of the time, the manager informed me that they were out of tuna, and had to send a truck to fetch more. After a while of this, they banned me from the restaurant for ordering the tuna salad.”
Actually, that analogy would only make sense if "you" refused to order anything but tuna salad and expected them to send the truck out without fail when they were out. And they had to comply with your request for some reason. In that case, yeah, they should ban "you".
The fellow is parking the car in his own garage, and ZipCar claims to be in the car business, and it is normal to park cars in garages.
I say they have tuna salad on the menu, but they apparently can't always serve it to everyone.
Your suggestion that he order something else to eat is like telling a ZipCar customer to move to a different condominium or whatever.
They don't "have" to do anything, provided they aren't discriminating against him on the basis of a prohibited factor like race or gender. Just as a restaurant doesn't have to serve you (subject to the same caveat).
But the important thing here to note is that the hypothetical restaurant has organized their business in such a way that some customers cannot get what they claim to serve, just as ZipCar has organized their business such that some customers cannot enjoy the service they claim to offer.
They don't have to do anything, but I object to blaming the customer for their choice to run their business in such a way that a very ordinary thing that some customers can do, others cannot.
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#154> making sure that the cars work when out of reception is a “mission-critical success factor” for the company I guess mission failed then... It is so easy to call something mission-critical. I am always tempted to ignore it when I hear it, because most of the time it is a red herring. Instead I use it as a launching off point for a conversation with clients about priorities for a given solution.
If the car has a big yellow sticker on the dash saying, "if you drive this vehicle to a location without cellular coverage, you may become stranded", would you rent it?
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the US the keys that are in the car are physically tied to the car with a string. You are expected to use the card to lock and unlock during your reservation
Wow, if I came across that without some prominent warnings, I'd probably assume some kind of key setup mistake and cut the string.
It has a warning. Something like “leave these keys here! It seems weird but don’t worry about it.”
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#156All car sharing platforms* I have used in Amsterdam/The Netherlands/Europe have a key in the glove compartment that you can take out when you park the car. Why doesn't Zipcar do the same? * i.e. Car2Go, ConnectCar, MyWheels, Fetch, SnappCar
Doesn't the key go missing often?
I'm reminded of European hotels that want you to leave the room key at the front desk.
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#157I've rented Zipcars here in the UK many times and never encountered this. The cars have a key in the glove compartment. After you initially unlock it at the beginning of your reservation you take that key with you. You put it back in at the end of the reservation. In between you use it to unlock like a regular car key/fob. Am I missing something here? Edit: https://support.zipcar.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/360001460928-…
Technically, according to their rules, you are supposed to leave the key in the car. I didn't think anyone actually paid attention to that rule.
You're supposed to put it back _at the end of the reservation_. Not every time you lock the car.
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
The whole point of zip car is that you aren't reserving it a week in advance and want to wait for a key to be mailed to you.
Why can't they just leave the key in the glove compartment? That way, Zipcar only needs to unlock the car remotely when the user starts the rental, and lock the car remotely when the rental ends. In between, the user can use the key. like with every other car.
Probably to prevent accidentally taking the key. If you've ever used a zipcar, the key is affixed to the steering column. I assume they have an ignition interrupter that requires a proper unlock signal because otherwise stealing one would be matter of jimmying a lock or breaking a window.
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#159I've rented Zipcars here in the UK many times and never encountered this. The cars have a key in the glove compartment. After you initially unlock it at the beginning of your reservation you take that key with you. You put it back in at the end of the reservation. In between you use it to unlock like a regular car key/fob. Am I missing something here? Edit: https://support.zipcar.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/360001460928-…
Given human nature, I'd assume you would be missing the key frequently. Many of the reported issues seem to involve renewing an expired reservation. Also, how's your cell coverage there?
You will be charged quite a bit if the key is missing at the end of your reservation. They do have your ID, driving license, and credit card on file after all.
Re: When I Took My Zipcar Into the Wilderness
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes if you want to get pedantic the subheadline could more aptly read, "i was unable to open or start a car with a dead battery". or for the main headline, "when i took my non-zipcar into the wilderness (and its battery died and i was stranded)", would anybody read it? no.
ZipCar seems to be unique (at least among cars I've used) in that you can't open the doors with a dead battery and it seems there's no mechanical backup. As a result the car needed to be towed. Additionally, you seem to be ignoring that the battery may have died because it couldn't find a cellular signal. And yes, I would have read it if the subheadline was instead something about modern cars that weren't zipcars tha…
> the battery may have died because it couldn't find a cellular signal.
I had totally overlooked this myself, thanks. If Zipcars without service are constantly phoning home and running down the battery, that could make the issue way more common, and explain why regularly-serviced cars still die on people pretty often. It would also escalate ZipCar's role from locking the car when the battery dies to actually killing the battery.
Beyond that, I do wish the social tie-in hadn't just been a line about networks failing us, but a more substantial look at the limitations of relying on power and data access. It's not just a sharing-economy issue; wholly-owned IoT devices, keyless-start cars, iPhones earbuds, etc. increasingly lack analog fallbacks. They're not just neglected when designing cheap IoT goods, they're being stripped out of existing products like phones and keyfobs for sleeker design.
It's a topic that's been on my mind a lot; whenever I travel abroad or to remote bits of the US, I notice that an increasing fraction of both services and products aren't viable. Beyond my inconvenience, it makes me wonder what will happen in 10 or 20 years. It's not uncommon to go somewhere remote and see everyone using the previous generation of products, either bought used or sold off cheap as they aged. But that's going to be increasingly impractical as those things demand nonstop data access.